Civil War
The doomsayers are loud among us. “We are headed towards a new Civil War!!” they cry out. “ANTIFA is coming to burn your combine,” (not making that up, after one with Trump flags burned in a field in rural Nebraska). “The Proud Boys will be at our polling place”. Some demonstrations in the streets turned violent last summer. Some took advantage of Black Lives Matter to burn, loot, and destroy. And some police officers aren’t helping: young children were pepper-sprayed this weekend at a voting march in North Carolina. So-called “Militias,” heavily armed with assault rifles and combat gear are strutting around the State House lawns. It feels tense.
And it doesn’t help that the President of the United States is sowing the seeds of discontent. For months, President Trump has warned that “mail-in ballots” (except, of course, HIS mail-in ballot in Florida) were fraudulent. He is now poised to attack the election results in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota. He will “short-circuit” the results – declaring a faux “victory” whenever the count suits his purpose. And he claims that “his” Supreme Court will “back him up”.
Those of us who spent four years in the “Resistance” are ready to flood the streets, defending the election process against Trump’s outrageous claims. And then there are the “Trucking Trumpsters”: pickup trucks with Trump flags flapping, “parading” on the Interstates and disrupting traffic. Things grew more than just inconvenient when shots were fired on the outer-belt here in Columbus, or they surrounded a Biden/Harris campaign bus in Austin, Texas.
Are we headed to the downfall of the American democracy? Are we so divided, that no winner will be accepted?
History
Historians spend a lifetime studying the past and trying to apply it to the present. And to historians, there is no time in American history more dramatic than the years before the Civil War, leading up to the election of 1860. The Supreme Court’s 1857 ham handed acceptance of slavery, the Dred Scott decision, made it seem that there was no legislative means to resolve the crisis. The frustration with that helped lead to John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry in October of 1859, an armed insurrection against that government.
Slavery was not only a moral issue; it was an economic one. The immorality of owning slaves was rationalized by the need of the South to use slaves to support their cotton growing economy. Abolitionism did not provide an answer for the Southern aristocracy, heavily indebted with their slaves as collateral for their loans.
The media of the time, newspapers, exploded on both sides of the issue of slavery. John Brown, executed by the United States two months later, lit the fuse to the powder keg. The polarization of the nation was completed in the election of 1860, where the Republican candidate, Lincoln, only won 40% of the popular vote but gained a majority of the Electoral College. The runner-up in the popular vote, the “middle” candidate Stephen Douglas, got 30% of the popular vote, but only 12 Electoral votes. Third place pro-slavery candidate John Breckenridge, had 18% of the popular vote, but carried many of the slave states for 72 Electoral vote.
We were a nation divided, politically, geographically, economically and socially.
Rhymes
We are a divided nation today, driven by media that exacerbates our differences. We have a President who does not have majority support, and a Court that seems to be weighing in on one side of political issues. It’s not surprising that many see that “rhyming” with 1860, and resulting in the same outcome.
But it is not the same. While there are many issues in our election today, the overwhelming crisis of COVID has changed it all. We are now in a world where one side looks to science and fact to solve the problems, and one side does not. It is not the “moral” question of slavery; it is a much clearer choice.
And economically there are effective solutions in science. Controlling the COVID spread by simple tools, masks, social distancing and crowd control, will allow for much of the economy to open. The alternative, what the President advocates we do, is to open without controlling the spread. That will hamstring our economy for years to come.
Slavery and COVID are not the same. And the grievances that existed before COVID, the newly Trump empowered “victims” of the “left leaning” government, are real, but not so powerful to bring about a revolution.
Victims
Donald Trump has a fallback plan, the same one he had before the surprise 2016 election results. “Trump TV” will be based on his victimhood, and he will continue to make a living on feeding the polarization of America. But to be an effective victim, he must have an ultimate “wrong”. And that “wrong” will be the election of 2020, which he will forever claim was “stolen” from him by us “leftist” Democrats.
So be it. But he doesn’t need violence to get that done. He needs folks willing to watch his show, listen to his rhetoric, and put their money on “MAGA” hats. He needs fellow “victims” to finance his upcoming loan calls, and violence won’t help that. Trump needs their disaffection, not action.
For those looking for a “Kum-by-ya” moment at the Biden inauguration: I wish it were so. I hope that those reasonable folks who found an outlet through Trump, will be more American than Trumpian. But more likely, our divisions will continue. There’s too much money to be made by commentators on Fox, and the Trump family too.
But we aren’t going to war.
